Television
Smoking in bed
Jeffrey Bernard In my capacity as an indiscriminate, oneman, star-struck fan club I have seen babies born in covered wagons during Indian raids, in farmhouses during blizzards and in miners' cottages during depressions. I have even seen the real thing. Never though have I seen anything as dramatic and palpably tense as the sight of Prue Sorenson giving birth in last Friday's Bouquet of Barbed Wire (London Weekend). Switching on late—I'd been detained on the telephone for half an hour by a woman who uses it like a blunt instrument and who talks as Andrea Newman writes—I thought that I'd missed the birth and that I must be watching Prue attempting to contain a gigantic helping of veterinary laxative. Frank Finlay, the ashen-faced family supremo, looked pretty sick about the
whole business too and I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't been put off women for good. So far, Sheila Allen has been an absolute brick, but it must have been during the making of this episode that she phoned her agent to ask if there was the chance of a six-month tour with Mary Poppins. You can't blame her for throwing in the sponge—something she should have done in the delivery room—and all that remains for her now is to jump into bed with old Frank's secretary, Sarah, in the final episode. There is, of course, one other combination that might hit our screens tonight and that's Frank and daughter Sue. I mean, that's what it's all about, isn't it ? My God, these Freudian waters run deep, and speaking as someone who was inordinately fond of his mother, it's not that
I'm shocked, it's just that I'm surprised father and daughter are making such a secret of it. If and when the secret is revealed it will hit us with all the impact we felt on learning that the secret of making tea is to heat the pot. Nevertheless, Bouquet has, in its time, given me many useful hints and clues as to how to conduct life on a middle-class level. So far, I have always believed in the value of the barefaced lie, but now I know that there's nothing like owning up, preferably in a loud voice in the casualty department of any big hospital, to give a woman the impression that you're a basically decent and deep thinker.
Another thing I've noticed frequently and recently on television is the way that writers and directors mark your card as far as the classes go. Middle and professional class people, it seems, always light up a cigarette and/or stare and talk at the ceiling after an attack of sexual intercourse. The lower orders, on the other hand, especially the likes of the very good James Bolam, can't wait to get their boots on and get down to the local for a pint. There was a time when a candle stuck in an old chianti bottle on the dinner table and an 'After Eight' followed by an all-family row was enough to denote that you were watching intelligent people being portrayed. Now, what's indicative is the depth to which their depression will plummet between bouts of sexual intercourse. The middle classes don't have happy affairs. Only coalminers, servicemen, junior doctors and other groups with low IQs are allowed to smile while they are cuckolding each other. Although I'm going to miss Frank Finlay after this week, I wouldn't say he was the guvnor at that game though. The all-time champion, who spoke by kind permission of Arthur Hoperaft in The Nearly Man was Tony Britton; probably the best after-sex speaker in the country.
Edward Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (BBC1) was an excellent end-of-the-week antidote to a lot that had gone before it. A good looking and, above all, informative film—the fantastic fiftymile-long aqueduct in North Africa, the simple and touching letters discovered there, John Julius Norwich's brief but concise comments on Roman economics— was a pleasure to watch and listen to. Only Magnus Magnusson spoilt it by standing on the Antonine Wall and spouting rubbish about the superiority of the Celts like a coherent Glasgow Rangers supporter—if there is such a thing.
Read All About It (BBC!) was better than usual, mainly thanks to Arianna Stassinopoulos and James Herriott who should have hit Robert Kee for his patronising condescension. Mr Kee is far too old for a hip hair-cut and going to Melvyn Bragg's hairdresser is no excuse to get uppish and talk down to the likes of Mr Herriott. Of course, Herriott's books sell well, so may God have mercy on his soul.
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